


Every Hour is Saved

by madamebadger



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, F/M, Family, Gift Giving, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 08:08:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1143585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madamebadger/pseuds/madamebadger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gift-giving is notoriously difficult across species, but that doesn't stop Garrus from finding the perfect thing for Shepard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Hour is Saved

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt of "Offer Me" (one character giving a gift for another), given to me by [thievinghippo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/thievinghippo/) on Tumblr.

Gift-giving was _notoriously_ difficult across species.

Both turians and humans gave food as gifts. But Garrus couldn’t digest Shepard’s chocolate, and his _misilium_ would poison her. She bought him a rose, and he sneezed for three days; he bought her a book of poetry, but the translation was… well.

“What does ‘to love beyond _talanex_ and across _laelirus_ mean?” Shepard asked, frowning as she spun the poem up and down on her omnitool.

“It’s, uh,” Garrus said, “well, _talanex_ is—it has to do with… relative social status, but also your comparative dedication to… I guess ‘family duty’ is close, but it also has to do with….” He flexed his fingers. “…I don’t think I can explain it.”

Shepard gave him an eyebrows-raised look.

“I never said _I_ was a poet,” Garrus pointed out, and Shepard couldn’t stop herself snickering.

After the disaster with the lingerie, which had them both laughing so hard that Shepard almost fell off the couch, they decided: no more gifts. It didn’t matter. It was enough to have someone _there_ for you: a shoulder to cry on, a strong right arm, a warmth in the night. 

***

Shepard still felt a little bad taking over Anderson’s apartment, but he clearly wasn’t using it and it was good to have genuine privacy for a while. Even though she had her own, ridiculously spacious quarters on the Normandy, on any ship people wound up living in each other’s pockets. Shepard had grown up with that—with her mom in the service, she’d hopped from ship to space station to ship to colony outpost throughout her childhood—but sometimes the comparative anonymity was a nice break. (It was hard to imagine living on the quarian fleet: every time Tali noted with awe how much space and privacy there was on the Normandy, Shepard wondered how they all managed.)

She’d spent the peace and quiet of the afternoon catching up on her reading while Garrus updated and optimized his omnitool and then—that done—started poking around behind the vidscreen.

“What’s up?” she asked, peering at him over the top of her datapad.

Garrus’s reply was muffled: “I think I can rewire this to get a better signal.” Shepard hid her grin.

It was a few hours later that Garrus leaned over the back of her chair. His hands settled, warm, on her shoulders, strong suede-soft fingers kneading the tension out of her sore muscles. Shepard arched into the touch, letting his strong touch soothe away the deep ache. 

“I hope you don’t mind,” Garrus said. “I invited someone over.”

“Sure,” Shepard replied, absently, scrolling through a list of message. “We’ll have to order something in for dinner—” 

The door chime interrupted her, and she swung to her feet to answer it.

And then the voice over the intercom sliced her to the bone—no, to the soul. “Sweetie? It’s Mom.”

(As if she could forget that voice, ever. _Mom_.) Her throat tightened. She glanced sideways at Garrus.

“I thought,” he said, low, “that you might want to see her, before we head to Earth. So I arranged it.” His mandibles trembled, a subtle expression whose nuances Shepard still didn’t know. “Anderson helped a lot, of course.”

Shepard nodded, wordless. “Come in, Mom,” she said, as soon as she could trust her voice. And before the doors opened, she turned and mouthed _I love you_ to Garrus.

He bent to touch his forehead to hers, before the door whisked open.

***

They didn’t have much time together. Rear Admiral Hannah Shepard— _Mom_ —looked older than Shepard remembered; her once-roan hair was now almost entirely gray, with only a few coppery threads brightening it. It looked good, dignified, in its tight coil at the back of her head. There were more lines around her eyes, but also more around her mouth, and Shepard hoped that meant she was finding things to laugh about.

(That was a real sign of adulthood, wasn’t it? When you worried about your parents instead of just them worrying about you?)

“I’ve only got an hour and a half,” Mom said, after a rib-creaking hug. Garrus brought them both something to drink and then made himself scarce. “The Orizaba is taking me to Crucible project headquarters tonight. But your Mister Vakarian said he’d make sure we could make the most of it.”

They talked—it wasn’t easy to remember later what they talked about. Nothing too heavy, because they both knew they didn’t have time to delve into the real depths. Later, if they both survived… later. But Mom had a funny story about couple of her crewmen who had dedicated no small amount of effort and ingenuity into smuggling ryncol on board, only to find out why humans didn’t drink ryncol in the first place; Shepard countered by telling her all about Ken and Gabby—although she wasn’t sure whether her mom laughed because of the story, or because of her terrible imitation of Ken, or just because she was glad to hear from her at all. They reminisced about Dad (a topic still painful, but softening with time, in its own way), and about places they’d lived, years before, when Shepard had been a spacer brat and her mother a longsuffering lieutenant.

“I like Garrus, you know,” Mom said, as their too-short time drew to its end. “But he did all kinds of legwork to make sure I’d get a chance to see you, so you might say he’s bribed the judge and jury.”

Shepard laughed. “I like him, too,” she said, dryly.

“Not that you need my approval. You know that. Whatever you do, I’ll support you.” A pause, and Shepard could see her mom’s mouth tighten in that way that meant ‘I’m not going to smile, but I want to.’ “But you’ve always needed someone to keep you grounded, honey. Just from what little I’ve seen of him, I think he’ll do a good job.”

Shepard rested her chin in one hand and gave her mom a look. “To balance out my crazy flights of fancy?”

“Oh, no. Not at all.” Mom’s eyes were soft. “To help you launch them.”

***

The Shepards had never gone in for long goodbyes. When Mom left, it was heralded by another vigorous hug, and by an injunction for Shepard to take care of herself. (Shepard made her mom promise the same thing, and got a wry smile and nod in return.) And then, when the door had shut and the lift whisked away, she turned… and there was Garrus.

“Good present?” he asked.

“The best,” Shepard said, and her voice felt strained. She slid an arm around him, her hand settling on the warm ridge of his cowl, and pressed her cheek against his chest, resting against him until her staggering breath steadied and she was no longer afraid she was going to cry.

“I thought after the screw-up with the chocolates, something like this would be safer,” Garrus said. His talons threaded through her hair.

Shepard gave a watery laugh. “How were you supposed to know that chocolate-covered ants were a novelty product and not a romantic gift?”

She felt him drop his chin, rest his mouthplates against the crown of her head. His mandibles whispered over her hair. “It just took some logistics. I’m good at logistics. And Anderson helped—”

She tilted her head up, caught her hands around the smooth back of his neck just under his fringe. She pulled him down so that his forehead rested against hers. “It was a perfect present,” she said, “and don’t you dare go pretending it wasn’t a big deal. It was. It was exactly what I needed.”

He nodded, and she could feel the warm exhale of his breath wash over her. His scent was still so alien, and yet it had grown as familiar as her own skin. She tugged him down more, a little lower, and kissed him, the way they had figured out how to kiss: her pliant lips against the firmer flex of his mouthplates, the leather-and-metal taste, the smoothness of his tongue and the dangerous serrations of his teeth. So alien, so alien, and yet he knew her so well that he could find exactly the gift that she would want more than anything and yet didn’t even know to ask for.

“Come to bed,” she murmured against his mouth, and he did.

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from "[Ulysses](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174659)," by Tennyson--specifically, this bit:
> 
> _Little remains: but every hour is saved_  
>  _From that eternal silence_
> 
> (And yes, it felt weird to use a Tennyson quote to name a story about someone other than Ashley! It felt too apt to not use, though.)


End file.
